LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — It was a record summer for students at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

More than 1,300 students interned in technical and nontechnical fields and a record 415 postdoctoral students are working at Los Alamos this year.

The lab's Education and Postdoc Office program manager, Dave Foster, says student interns and postdoctoral students contribute significantly to lab work. He says they also enhance their own academic and research skills while offering a pipeline for potential lab hires.

Foster says 29 percent of current employees joined the lab as student interns or postdocs.

Among the universities represented last summer at Los Alamos — the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Texas A&M, Stanford, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Delhi, University of Munich and many others.